The Old Man and Batman [Short Story]

Jerry released the cup of coffee. It plummeted to the linoleum floor. Batman, his cat, startled by the loud crash jumped up and scurried out of the kitchen.

“Goddamn it,” Jerry muttered and went to get a dishtowel to mop up the mess.

It wasn’t his fault he dropped the cup. He had been minding his own business, drinking his coffee and staring at the kitchen wall when suddenly the wall shimmered and he could see right through it. He contemplated whether it was an LSD flashback but he had never done drugs. An old man seeing things—they put people away for that sort of thing.

Jerry tried to ignore the shimmering walls at first but he couldn’t resist for long. Tiny translucent flashes here and there—snapshots into his neighbor’s lives. The longer he stared at the kitchen wall, the clearer the image on the other side. No one was home. A full minute passed. Jerry looked away exhausted. He figured it was like building a muscle and his newfound ability would improve over time.

Jerry and batman didn’t get out much and that suited them just fine. But some days it felt like they were two sardines trapped in a tin can. That feeling dissipated the longer Jerry stared through the walls.

He discovered a middle-aged couple on the other side of the kitchen. The man would go to work and the woman would stay home bored. One day, some handsome fella showed up mid-morning. What followed, well Jerry couldn’t look away or put into words. It was like a wild contortionist act at the circus. Though exciting and titillating at first Jerry grew tired of watching the cheating wife. His first wife had cheated on him after all.

He swiveled his chair to the opposite wall. A young couple lived there, probably newlyweds. All smiles, hugs, cuddles and kisses. It made him sick. They would stay in bed all day on weekends and just talk and talk and talk. Jerry couldn’t help think of his first wife again and how they had followed a similar pattern in their early days. He had worked damn hard to repress thoughts of her but his new superpower was making it more difficult than ever.

For several days Jerry refused to look through the walls. It was an invasion of people’s privacy. It wasn’t decent. It wasn’t right. But he began to worry. What you don't use, you lose.

He peered upstairs. A pretty young woman living by herself. She would never have any visitors. Jerry could mostly only see the soles of her perfectly sculpted feet but every Wednesday she would stretch out on the floor and watch movies. Jerry would lie on his back and stare up at her with batman crawling all over him. It wasn’t a bad way to spend a Wednesday. Overtime Jerry grew bored of her too.

He had worked his way from left to right to top, and now only the bottom apartment remained. He had glanced down there occasionally but it was just another single woman. An old and lonely fart. Her routine was unremarkable, just like his. And she had a cat, except hers was all white. Jerry watched her for a few days but he got bored of her even faster than the other neighbors. He reckoned he would watch her just to keep his new skill sharp.

A guy would come by and drop off food for her every Monday, the same guy that would deliver to Jerry. They got the same stuff. Tins of tuna, rice, some half-stale bread and an assortment of sad looking vegetables and deflated fruits.

Jerry’s routine started to fall in line with hers. He started to watch the same TV shows. Daytime soaps that he once thought boring didn’t seem so bad when you could watch a person’s reactions down below.

“That kitty downstairs is real pretty, batman. You should go say hi,” Jerry said to the cat perched on his lap.

As soon as the words escaped his mouth he wanted to stuff them back in.

“But what would I say to her? Hey, can I borrow a cup of sugar?” Jerry laughed till tears rolled down his cheeks.

The idea of the two cats meeting and the cliché thought of asking for a cup of sugar wouldn’t escape him. He couldn’t sleep well and when he did he would wake up with a cold sweat having dreamed about something ridiculous like mountains of sugar and large lions roaming dark apartment hallways. Jerry’s appetite suffered. The old lady would have a tuna sandwich and all he could stomach was a stale cracker.

“She put a spell on me,” Jerry said to batman. “Woman are terrible. Don’t you fall for their tricks if you ever meet a pretty white cat.”

That evening Jerry made a resolution. He had to break the old lady’s spell the next morning or he was a goner. That night he slept better than he had in a while.

For breakfast, he had two strips of bacon and two eggs, sunny-side-up. He showered and put on his Sunday best. He polished his black leather loafers to a sparkling sheen. He looked back at batman and gave him a thumbs up. Feeling silly and nervous he walked into the hallway and quickly retreated back inside the apartment. He slumped against the door, breathless with heart thumping. Batman looked at him.

“It’s not as easy as it looks!”

He ran into the kitchen and grabbed a jar. He dumped sugar from it into the sink and turned on the tap.

“No more excuses.”

Jerry forced himself into the hallway. He entered the stairwell. He was in front of her door.

He steadied his trembling hands that clutched the sugar jar. He looked up and saw batman through the walls.

“Let's get you a friend,” he whispered and knocked on the old lady’s door.

---

This is my entry for @mctiller's Twenty-Four Hour Short Story Contest for July 24 with the prompt: A lonely man develops the ability to see through walls.

Pixabay Image Source